First Things First & Evolution Explained

I would like to acknowledge that I may, at times have mispellings and or grammatical incorrectness, I will not apologize for this. Instead I ask that you bare with me. I will do my best and I will try to keep you stimulated with my ideas and hope that you can look past my imperfections. That being said...

I would like to discuss the evolution of my current series of paintings called Native. This idea came from a figure drawing class I attended at the home of artist Arthur Johnson in Kalapana, Hawaii. I am not much of an art class guy but, I was vacationing with my family and met up with the local artists on the beach and ended up as the guest artist. Anyway, we discussed the most simple ideas of human proportion, as illustrated by DaVinci's Vitruvian Man. Although, as I went home and pondered about the distillation and or simplification of human form I was left with three numbers 1-4-9. I began sketching, it started with one simple figure. Then I really could not stop I kept drawing these simple little figures in groupings of 1, 4and 9. They just poured out of me for a couple of days until I had covered every piece of paper in our little vacation rental. I really felt like I was on to something. Upon my return to my art studio, I experimented with how I would put these little figures on to canvas. I tried watercolor, I tried ink, I began very simply, dark figures on a white or tea stained canvas.

They were missing something. I paint in oils, I needed to try them in oils, into my style and to see what would happen. Out of this, the landscapes, which started out very eleborate, began to distill . I was coming into a beautiful simplicity. A symphony of light, shadow, form, color and spacial plane, all playing together to form a balance.

As I create these images now, they feel RIGHT to me. I believe that they are now correct and whole and that I am doing the idea justice. I am inspired, hopeful and grateful to these images for coming to ME.

I am still working in my studio, on canvas, but I promise to get out there and get this out into the world very soon. Unfortunately, it is raining, again. I think I'm going to have to get creative with this public art project. Any ideas?